Cool Songs for Cool Kids (book 1) features 21 fun and Cool sounding piano pieces composed specifically for teenage piano students – especially teenage boys. Each of these Cool Songs were composed by Jerald Simon during actual piano lessons with many of his own teenage piano students to help motivate and inspire them to learn music theory the fun way – through original Cool Songs.The songs are:1. Five, Four, Three, Two, One…BLAST OFF!2. Play ground Pro3. Beat-cha to it4. Checkmate5. Five for Five6. Deep Sea Diving7. Game Over8. Locker Jam9. Rock ‘n Rag10. Rocket Man11. Junkyard Jive12. Lefty13. Championship Game14. On Your Mark…Get Set…15. Spy Games16. Proximity17. Battle Front18.Homework Hang-Over19. Thunderstorm20. Bittersweet21. New Age-Ish Jerald Simon states the philosophy of this series in the first volume of Cool Songs for Cool Kids: These books are intended to inspire students of all ages to become motivated to learn more about various styles of music (and) to encourage and inspire students to learn how to create music of their own. This passionate philosophy is indeed evident throughout these two - soon to be three - volumes, with each piece presenting a briefly described technical or theoretical skill. The book's introductory exercises coach pentascale patterns and intervals, teaching a language that will not only help the student learn the music in the collection, but will also develop a foundation for improvisation and composition. In addition, most of the pieces include chord symbols that would further inspire improvisation. Simon sometimes pairs a piece with a 'Music Motivation' Challenge. These challenges ask students to improvise a right-hand melody with a given walking bass, transpose, or write in chord symbols or dynamic markings. Each piece has a fun, catchy title such as 'Beat-cha to it' or 'Rocket Man,' and in lieu of tempo markings there are motivational phrases such as 'Shoot for the stars' and 'This is your moment.' The pieces are based on easily understood intervals and rhythmic patterns, and, when new rhythms are introduce, Simon supplies written-in counts for several measures. --2011 July/August issue of the Clavier Companion First and foremost, Jerald is a husband to his beautiful wife, Zanny, and a father to his wonderful children. Jerald Simon is the founder of Music Motivation® (musicmotivation.com), a company he formed to provide music instruction through workshops, giving speeches and seminars, and concerts and performances in the field of music and motivation. He is a composer, author, poet, and Music Mentor/piano teacher (primarily focusing his piano teaching on music theory, improvisation, composition, and arranging). Jerald loves spending time with his wife, Zanny, and their children. In addition, he loves music, teaching, speaking, performing, playing sports, exercising, reading, writing poetry and self help books, and gardening. Jerald Simon is the founder of Music Motivation® and focuses on helping piano students and piano teachers learn music theory, improvisation, and composition. He refers to these areas as: Theory Therapy, Innovative Improvisation, and Creative Composition. Simon is an author and composer and has written 28 music books featuring almost 300 original compositions, 14 albums, three motivational poetry books featuring over 400 original poems (poetrythatmotivates.com), and is the creator of the best-selling Cool Songs Series (musicmotivation.com/coolsongs), the best-selling Essential Piano Exercises Series (essentialpianoexercises.com) and Essential Piano Lessons for piano students (essentialpianolessons.com) and also Essential Piano Teachers for piano teachers (essentialpianoteachers.com). You can watch Jerald's videos on his YouTube channel at this link: youtube.com/jeraldsimon. Listen to Jerald's music on all streaming sites and his podcast, Music, Motivation, and More - The Positivity Podcast with Jerald Simon on all podcast platforms. Jerald has also created Empowered by Positivity (empoweredbypositivity.com) to inspire others to do and be their best!
